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One of my wide-sweeping goals for this trip is to learn new things – not just the intangible new knowledge that you gain of new cultures, religions and regions, but tangible skills.  All throughout the trip so far I have been trying to learn the local skills and crafts – a cooking class in Laos taught me a few basic dishes from that region – my intention for India has been dance classes and henna.  Pushkar is a fairly small town and quite navigable – which is most certainly not something you can say for a lot of the towns in Rajasthan.  I have encountered several other fellow travelers along the way who have out-right hated Pushkar and left after just one day in the town.  I felt a sort of affinity for the town – the shopping was plentiful and contained to just one main road and the family at Tulsi Palace was so welcoming and friendly.

One of the off-putting parts about Pushkar is undoubtedly the overpowering “priests” that surround the holy lake and pressure you for donations every nearly every single moment when you are on the main tourist strip.  The town of Pushkar is built up around the holy lake and really quite pretty.  As a tourist though, making a pilgrimage down to the lakeside to quietly observe the Indians praying and dipping themselves in the water is nearly impossible.  These priests, dressed in all white kurtah-pajamas and looking quite solemn nab their unsuspecting tourists by shoving small fragrant flowers in the palms of their hands.  They then usher you down the steps and encourage you to sit near the water while they begin to chant a prayer.

All of this is fine and dandy and for about four minutes the “priests” (I use this term so very loosely) invoked all of the Hindu gods and goddess to pray for all of my family members, for my health, my wealth, my success in career, success in love, and all manner of positive things that I could bring into my life.  At about this time they splash some of the lake water on your head, grab your hand, and ask you for your donation.

So you’re wondering, am I so heartless that I wouldn’t through some rupees this man’s way considering he just sat with me and blessed my family?  Well, yes.  Although I offered up about 50 rupees in his direction (about $1) his righteous indignation at the amount and subsequent request for as much as USD $100 had Helen and myself fleeing.  The men followed in rapid pursuit as we quickly shoved our shoes back onto our feet, pushed our way around the men who were now thronging us in request for large donations that would assure good karma for us.  So, how would I basically sum this up?  In one word: SCAM.

It only took that one innocent trip down to the lake to give us a clear indication that there was just no way to avoid the ridiculousness – from that point forward we walked past the priests with our hands quite literally clenched into fists to protect ourselves from the men shoving the flowers at us and attempting to give us a repeat performance.

In our wanderings of the town we found signs for a music and art school – located in the heart of town and down small, smelly winding lanes where the children shout out hearty
“hello’s” at the top of their lungs, was the School for Music and Art.  A quick enquiry after henna  lessons soon had us sitting in a chair talking with Deepa, the school’s henna artist.  She showed us some print outs of different types of henna, quoted us a ridiculous sum of money for six hours of henna lessons and indicated that we could start immediately.  Helen and I were a bit intimidated (really I can’t understand why in retrospect) and we cowed a bit when she indicated that although she had no portfolio of her own work to proffer, she was a professional and that was enough.  We both really wanted to know a bit more information about the class before we handed over our money but neither of us spoke up.

With a bit of conferring we agreed to pay the money and take some henna lessons from Deepa.  The first lesson consisted of practicing specific leaf designs that are used in Rajasthani henna – we drew these with precision and uniformity down the lengths of our pages.  Deepa watched throughout, correcting some of the funny looking leaves, but mostly sat near us chatting with her sister-in-law (who incidentally refused to remove the scarf covering her face but for the briefest of moments even though we were inside the building and closed within a room…I don’t get it).  At the end of the class Deepa drew a hand into our notebooks and then filled the hand presumably with some of her best henna artwork – quite frankly it was crap and we were startled to say the least.

Helen and I left our first class a bit disappointed, we learned six basic leaf deigns and were told to go home and practice drawing these leaves late into the night.  We went home that evening and pow-wowed about our next class – neither of us was enjoying the henna class too much and thankfully we had only put half of the money down.  Let’s sum up what happened the next day with two words: mass confusion.  Deepa’s English was questionable at best so her brother was summoned to act as a translator.  I started out trying to be really tactful and indicated that the class wasn’t meeting our expectations…that just didn’t seem to compute.  Then we had to basic lay it out on the table – there was no way in hell we were going to pay any more money toward this class.  That got through to them a bit clearer and although we were still disappointed with ourselves for not having prevented that in some way we both learned a valuable lesson – Indians talk a lot of crap and will agree to virtually anything you ask.  Need directions? They’ll give you directions…it doesn’t seem to matter to them if they have no idea where you want to go – the answer is always “yes, yes, very good, of course madam you just follow straight down the road, take a left, then a right and there you are madam.”

With the Deepa situation, the woman was not talented as a henna artist yet wasn’t about to admit that when there is prospective money in our pockets.  Next time we agreed that we will grill the person extensively before handing over our rupees.  It’s just frustrating for me as a traveler because I feel like everyone is just out to hose me in any way they can.  The bargaining culture has really begun to beat me down and stomp on my soul a bit – sometimes I find myself haggling with the tuk-tuk drivers over what amounts to US $0.30 because they just blatantly try to inflate the prices to whatever they think I will willingly pay.

Then! When I call them out on it and tell them they’re out of their mind and charging me double the going rate I get this patent response “No, no madam.  Very, very good price.  Local price.  Indian price for you.  So very good price, madam, I promise for you.”  And then they cap it off with the shrugging head bobble and a dead earnest stare.  Sometimes I just want to slap them.

One time a 17-year old Indian boy was walking by as the tuk-tuk driver delivered this line to us and started laughing so hard he clutched his side – he informed us that although the rate was well over double what he would have to pay that we were unlikely to get it much lower.  Rubbish!  I would rather walk than encourage that BS.

Ok – sorry, frustrated rant is over!

Anyway, I think all of this ridiculousness is part of the reason why Helen and I enjoyed the kids at Tulsi Palace so much – there was no artifice and they just wanted to chat and have a good time with us – they were, hands down, the best part of the trip so far -just a lot of honest fun.  And,  funnily enough, the 13-year old girl at our guesthouse was a better henna artist than Deepa.  Pooja very enthusiastically showed me her hand-drawn sketches and I picked out one of her designs and gave her free reign to go to town on my inner arm and palm.  She did pretty well – she was careful and methodical, and she won extra points in my book for being humble (something Deepa didn’t understand) and so very sweet.

Pooja and her siblings are just about the friendliest kids you can imagine – shy is just not a word they comprehend.  Within minutes of arriving back in our hotel room we would hear a faint knock at the door, and, if it was unlocked we would guess at which small head was about to pop through the door.  My favorite of the five was the littlest, Poonam, and her huge grinning face would pop around the door frame and ask to enter.

Once we let one in the rest soon followed and we would rapidly have the five of them sprawling on the beds and draped in the doorway.  The oldest, Pooja’s brother Deepak, offered up a CD of Bollywood hits and, since I was jonesing for some ridiculous Indian dancing accompanied by cheesy Hindi music, we started a mini-dance party throughout Tulsi Palace.  This is about the time that the phrase tom nacho (will you dance) made it into our vocabulary.

The best part about our Tulsi dance party – even grandma Tulsi, 92 and still spunky, joined in and showed us some moves.  The song playing on this silly little video is extremely popular in India right now – all of the kids at Tulsi Palace shouted out the chorus as it played and we danced our hearts out to it.  As the weeks have passed since then, Helen and I have actually had this song plague our mornings – imagine hearing this song blaring out from the radio, playing at top volume, at 7:00 in the morning and echoing throughout the in lobby right outside your room – it’s a special experience.

Here is a silly little video with the annoyingly catchy chorus playing for your pleasure:

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Reading: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris.  Pretty funny and the first book of his I have read – a really easy read but had me clutching my stomach in horrified laughter at times.

Listening to: Annoying Bollywood pop songs on the radio in the internet cafe.

Where am I really: Volunteering in Nepal – Nepali New Year was today – good fun and a three hour hike!